Over the past two months, we have seen some of the largest race protests and riots since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Through the work of many diligent protesters, instances of actual racism and inequality have been revealed.
But there has also been an influx of bad actors: criminals, rioters, arsonists, and looters. These rebels argue that the only way inequality will end is through violence — the literal meaning of “No Justice, No Peace.”
The killing of George Floyd shocked the country to its core, pushing a nation that was already tense from months in quarantine over the edge. People were universally and rightly outraged by what they saw. But since the protests have begun, many spokesmen and spokeswomen for the Black Lives Matter movement, including celebrities, politicians, and other high-profile activists, have called for not just the end of racism in America but the end of America itself.
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar said in June, “We cannot stop at the criminal justice system, we must begin the work of dismantling the whole system of oppression where we find it.” She went on to name just about every American system and label it oppressive.
America is not a racist country. One proof of this is that so many people have stood up against racism and police brutality to demand change. I know America is not a racist country because I have read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I know America is not a racist country because millions of mostly white men fought an entire Civil War to free African Americans from slavery.
Increasingly, we are seeing statues desecrated and removed — not of Robert E. Lee or other Confederates but of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass — in an effort to cancel great men, who are all in some way founders of the nation we live in today. CNN even headlined its story of President Trump’s speech in front of Mount Rushmore, a monument to great American presidents, “President Trump Gives Speech in Front of Two Slave Holders.”
It is anti-American to tear down the statues and the reputations of heroes who fought against racism and of those who helped establish the values that today impel us to end racism.
Anti-Americanism has been baked into the current Black Lives Matter movement from its inception. When Colin Kaepernick took a knee for the American flag in 2015, he was not doing it because he loved America and wanted to make it live up to its ideals. We know this because he said so. He was doing it because he believed that America and its ideals were inherently racist and bad. This is the same view that millions of radical leftists are trying to push today.
America is not racist or bad. American values are not racist or bad. “All men are created equal,” a dramatic and radical idea in its time, is in the first paragraph of our Declaration of Independence. Without our founding values, the push to end slavery would have taken decades longer. The key driving factor for abolitionists leading into the Civil War was that slavery went against our founding values.
Black lives matter — this is, of course, true and not even controversial. But the Black Lives Matter organization and the movement it leads is another matter. Violent and hateful people have hijacked and weaponized the phrase to promote their radical, deeply troubling views that America is inherently evil and must be destroyed because of it.
Anti-Americanism will not end racism. In fact, the only way racism can end in the United States is if we live up to and make our systems live up to our pro-American values. Not only is America not inherently racist, but it is inherently not racist according to its ideals. Its story is not a story of the oppressed but of the free claiming their freedom. We must stand up as patriots to ensure that the rights of all men and women, no matter their creed or color, are guaranteed equally, in accordance with our founding documents and the values they helped shape.
If you still don’t believe we can fight racism and not be anti-American, then take it from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:
Lincoln Anniballi writes on current events, culture, and history at the-more-perfect-union.com
